The Reserve Bank of India has directed all banks and finance companies to provide all information or documents requested by the special investigation team (SIT) looking into unearthing black money. RBI's directive pre-empts any bank from using customer confidentiality for denying information.

 

According to an official with a public sector bank, privacy policies do not allow lenders to release customer information except as directed by law or unless the customer has consented to the sharing of information.

 

The Narendra Modi government had constituted the SIT, headed by former Justice M B Shah, to recover black money in keeping with an order issued by the Supreme Court in July 2011. The panel has the mandate to look into cases where authorities have already commenced investigation or have already completed the investigations.

Quoting from the order, RBI said that the Supreme Court had directed, "All organs agencies, departments and agents of the state, whether at the level of the Union of India, or the state government, including but not limited to all statutorily formed individual bodies, and other constitutional bodies extend all the cooperation necessary for the functioning of the special investigation team."

The order also requires all government arms to facilitate the conduct of the investigations "by extending all necessary financial, material, legal, diplomatic and intelligence resources, whether such investigations or portions of such investigations occur inside the country or abroad", the order said.

"In view of the above, all the banks and financial institutions are advised to ensure that information/documents required by the SIT are made available as and when required," RBI said. (Times of India)